Technomancer
by kepic
Summary: CYOA v5 Update Gimel Drop-In. The main character loosely based on me but not quite SI. Canon can go and roll in its grave. Golden Age beginning, lots of rampaging elephant-sized butterflies. Good intentions and all that.
1. Chapter 1

**Technomancer**

To make it clear: All rights to characters, setting, story and central concepts in this story remain the property of Wildbow, Worm's author. This is just me playing in the sandbox. Worm can be found at parahumans dot wordpress dot com.

* * *

 **Trouble**

 **October 15th, 1987, Thursday**

I was on my way to school when I experienced a moment of consciousness-dimming vertigo. When I regained my senses I was standing on a street outside a white house with a broken second-floor window. Under the broken window on the ground was a body lying in a pool of blood. Blood was spattered everywhere. Two men were standing over the body.

"Bastard!" One of them shouted kicking the body. "Prick!"

"Jacob. We have company," the other man said.

My blood ran cold. Jacob, standing over a body? Fuck me, that's Jack Slash just after he and Harbinger killed King. I was so screwed.

Jacob turned, raising the blade in his hand. I ducked, afraid he was going to slice me.

"Ah, an audience! So who might you be?"

I slowly stood back up. "I'm… My name is Tom. Thomas Rue."

"Jacob, he just appeared out of thin air. He's either a cape or was sent here by one."

"Well, Tom. My friend Harbinger here tells me that you are special. Just how special are you?"

I was beginning to suspect which one of the CYOAs this little joyride was based on. This day was going to suck so much. "I'm not… I just… I have no idea how I ended up here. I was on my way to university when I nearly lost my consciousness and came to my senses here." I didn't have to fake the fear and nervousness I showed.

King's body was slashed almost to pieces, his guts spilled on the ground. Neither Harbinger nor Jack, no, Jacob, had injuries of any kind. The blood they were splattered with had to be King's. With his abilities not allowing him to touch either of them was probably wise.

Jacob saw me glancing at the body. "My masterwork, you understand. Now that I've got a taste of regicide I might have to take it up as a hobby."

"Jacob, please. We should just kill him and be on our way," Harbinger said.

I felt the blood drain from my face.

"Now, now. It might be a good thing to leave a witness. Who'd believe us otherwise? Or perhaps we could tell the others that it was him who killed King."

"They won't believe us. That a nobody like him could best King."

"We could buff him up. See if we can bring out the best in him."

Harbinger was silent for a while. "The likelihood is negligible but we have at least a day. We could try it."

Jacob was nodding. "And if it doesn't work out, we can always own up to it. Begin to make a name for ourselves."

"We _have_ names."

"A reputation. Don't tell me you don't feel like there is something bigger, something better. You call yourself Harbinger. That's all about the things to come."

I listened with interest and dawning horror. The dialogue had resumed canon and I didn't like Jack's obvious intent to torture me into triggering. On the other hand, I didn't really see a way out. Harbinger was way out of my league, perhaps even worse than Jack but at least he'd just kill me. I theoretically had an edge on Jack because I didn't have a shard yet.

"His name for me, not mine," Harbinger said.

"But don't you feel it? Something bigger? The rush?"

"Yes."

"Forget the stupid names and spandex. Tell me your heart isn't pounding, that you've never felt more alive than this."

Harbinger shook his head.

"We can live this. Together. Every waking second…"

"Jacob."

"Jack," Jacob said. He kicked King's body again. "Fuck it. He always called me Jacob, practically purring. His little killer in training. As if I could match up to his Gray Boy. I want to be more than that. Get out from under his shadow."

"Okay… Jack."

"If it's a farce, a joke, let's run with it. We take simple names, dumb names, and we make people quake in their shoes at the sound. Jack… Slash."

"I'm… no. I won't."

Jack wheeled on him, knife in hand.

"You want to fight?" Jack asked. The smile had dropped from his face.

The look in his eyes… hungry.

"No. That's just it. I don't want to keep doing this."

"You said it yourself. You feel the rush, like you're on the cusp of something greater."

"I do feel it, but I think I can get there by walking a different road," Harbinger said.

I could see the disappointment on Jack's face. See the way Jack's knuckles whitened as he tightened his grip on the blade. I knew that Harbinger was prepared to defend himself. If only I could leverage this moment… I kicked a stone towards Jack, hoping to distract him and for Harbinger to make a move.

Jack turned and cut me across both my thighs. I screamed and fell. Harbinger took the opportunity to run. Jack slashed a few time in his general direction, not making much of an effort. Harbinger was gone.

"Now why did you go and do that, eh?" Jack asked me. He walked next to me and kicked me in the head before I could answer.

* * *

I blearily opened my eyes. I was in what appeared to be a child's bedroom. Posters were taped on the walls, there was a small dressing table with a mirror decorated with stickers. Probably a girl then. My hands and feet were bound and I was propped up against the wall under a window.

"Back in the land of the living, I see," Jack said. He was sitting on the bed, idly flicking his razor open and closed.

"Where are we?" I said.

"Does it matter? We're here to see if you have potential. If you're special."

"Where's the girl… the family that lived here?"

"Oh, they're gone. Don't worry, it was quick and relatively painless. Now let's see what it takes for you to break."

* * *

Holy crap that hurt. It was rather easier than I was believed for it to be but perhaps that was because my shard came from the third entity. Still, not fun. Better than what had preceded it but not fun. I could see Jack still out of it and took the opportunity to materialize a Glock 17. I took aim and shot only to see Jack roll off the bed, completely avoiding the bullet. Guessing what was to come I cocooned myself in three inches of bulletproof glass.

Jack rose up from behind the bed and slashed down at me. I could see him screaming and frothing while shallow cuts began to criss-cross the glass. After a couple of minutes, Jack seemed to get bored and left.

Once he was outside the room I dismissed my protective cocoon of glass and crossed the room to raise a similar barrier across the doorway. Then I turned back to the window to see if Jack would leave that way. I heard a door being slammed downstairs but I didn't see him leave. I waited for an hour before sighing.

I began to check how badly off I was. A bit woozy, probably from blood loss. Bleeding still from a couple of deeper cuts. Designs for several different ways to patch myself up with nanites came to mind immediately but I decided not to chance anything exotic in my current state. Instead, I created a standard medical staple gun and closed the wounds I could reach. Then I materialized a blood infusion kit filled with my own blood. Another awesome benefit of being a nurse in my other life.

The materialized matter was temporary in the sense that I had a mass limit and I could dismiss it whenever I wanted. I just had to wait for my blood to replenish naturally before dismissing the blood I had created.

I had a feeling that I didn't have much time before Jack returned with his friends. I would rather not meet them before being prepared. I laid back for a while and pondered while waiting for the infusion to finish.

I let my mind go through some nanomachine designs, thought about what was going to happen, and tried desperately to avoid thinking about what had happened. Picking that 'worst day ever' twice when filling out that CYOA was probably the stupidest thing I had done, ever. I do not recommend it. I shuddered to think what taking it thrice would have done if two was being tortured by Jack Slash until I triggered.

The infusion was done and I prepared to leave. I created a cloud of foglets around me and a neural interface helmet to control them. I also materialized a suit utilizing carbon nanostructures and nanoservos to act as an additional protection. I liked my Tinker specialization. Probably why I had picked it. I can recommend picking _Infinite Treasury_ for any Tinker if you're planning on filling out a CYOA. Version 5 Gimel, to be exact.

Thus prepared I dismissed the infusion kit and the bulletproof glass covering the doorway. I walked out, trying to avoid seeing the slaughtered family downstairs. It was a glorious Friday morning and I had survived my first day in Wormverse.

I was going to crush canon so hard you couldn't see the remains with a scanning tunneling microscope.


	2. Chapter 2

**Technomancer**  
To make it clear: All rights to characters, setting, story and central concepts in this story remain the property of Wildbow, Worm's author. This is just me playing in the sandbox. Worm can be found at parahumans dot wordpress dot com.

* * *

 **Mistaken Identity**  
 **October 16th, 1987, Friday**

The glorious Friday morning didn't last, of course. I had tried to go with classic hero colors with my suit, you know, red, blue, white, all that jazz. People still remembered their comic books. Most of the suit was dull blue, with red highlights and a white stylized atom logo on the chest. Blame the dull part of blue on my 2018 sensibilities.

Now, I don't know if it was the dull blue, but I know that the hero that came and tried to mow me down was doing his best. I almost had to say ouch. Nah, not really. Even at this early stage my foglets and suit could handle your basic brute package. His every blow was handled by my foglets, cushioning each impact, spreading the kinetic force across all of them.

His partner, on the other hand, was a problem. She was a blaster that shot green disintegration beams. Yep, you read that right. Disintegration beams. As in Disintegrate spell from DnD and its ilk. Damn those hurt. Figuratively that is. I lost a lot of foglets and had to keep replenishing them. Luckily the foglets gave me time to dodge the beams. I did not want to experience one of them hitting my flesh. What was it with smite first, ask questions later? Of course, they were coming from the direction of the house with the dead family, and I was the first cape they saw.

He was dressed in a white suit with a golden sunburst on his chest. She was in a green suit with golden sunburst with one of the rays far longer than the others. She had long blonde hair and a green domino mask on covering her eyes with a sharp arrow-like extensions going down her cheeks. His head was covered in the same white fabric as his body.

I was a bit envious of the white dude's physique. It was power-gained, but still. I myself was overweight. Not really fat but pleasantly cuddly, or that was how I saw it. There was a market for guys like me. A bit different crowd than for guys like him but still.

Oh, wow, my mind was wandering. I was sort of glad that I could do martial arts instinctually which was far more what I could do in 2018. The couple of courses I had taken would not have made this possible. I had concentration problems that led me to get bored and find the next fun thing to do. A very low ability to withstand boredom was one of my flaws.

Still, I was hoping that not making any hostile moves towards the two would at least make them talk at some point. It took a while, around ten minutes or so. Dodging disintegration beams even with my suit was tiring.

"Halt, evildoer!" Whitey shouted.

Really? OK, it was the early days, comics were still a thing, and it was the eighties. It was still corny as hell. I stayed still, eyeing the green floating one. She was a rather nice eyeful when she wasn't trying to kill me.

"Umm, no. Not an evildoer. You did notice how I didn't try to harm you?"

The guy in white did pause. "Uh, yeah. So… Who are you?" he asked uncertainly.

"Technomancer. I sure hope to be a good guy. If you don't kill me first."

"What about the family over there? If you didn't do that, then who?!" the woman shouted. Her voice was nice even when she was shouting at me.

"That was Jack Slash. Wait, you don't know yet. Jacob. One of King's men. Protege. Whatever. The blood upstairs in the girl's room was mine. Triggering really wasn't fun."

They both recoiled. Yeah, they knew that too.

"Where did you get the suit, then?" she asked. She had landed and stood next to Whitey.

I materialized a giant teddy bear next to me. It was twice my size. "Like this."

They stood silent for a while. Probably surprised. I dismissed the bear.

"So are we good?" I asked.

"I think so. Atlas," he said walking to me to shake my hand.

The woman crossed his arms across her… Chest. Let's go with that. "Circe."

"Pleased to meetcha. So what now?"

"We call the police. There has been a murder. Murders," Atlas said. I could actually hear the sadness in his voice. This was the real deal. A hero.

"Yeah. Sure. Let's do that. Give me a minute," I said and walked to the nearest house and concentrated for a moment. I used my foglets to find a landline and materialized a tap I then attached to it.

"9-1-1, what's the emergency?"

"I'm at," a quick GPS check, "at the corner of Prall Avenue and Deisius Street on Staten Island. There have been multiple murders. A family on 110 Prall Avenue and the villain King on 102 Prall Avenue. The perpetrators were Jacob and Harbinger of King's crew. There are three heroes on the scene, Atlas, Circe, and Technomancer. We'll stay here and wait for the police to give our statements."

"Yes, sir. I'll send a couple of cars and ambulances there. Are villains there still?"

"No, they are long gone, I think. Please wait while I check."

I materialized a couple of dozen drones and searched through the neighborhood. No sign of villains. It took maybe fifteen minutes. "Still there?"

"Yes, sir."

"No villains nearby. I can hear the sirens. Technomancer out," I said and closed the connection. I withdrew the tap and walked to Atlas and Circe.

"The cops will be here soon. I suggest we omit our little tiff from our statements. Not really relevant to the murders, eh?" I said to them.

They looked slightly uncomfortable for a moment, then Circe said: "Yeah, that might be for the best."

* * *

We gave our statements, the police did their thing, we changed a few more words, promised not to repeat the tiff we had the next time we met and parted ways. I had an inkling of a plan forming in the back of my mind. The first step was to establish a lair.

I took my bearings and thought about it for a moment. I knew the events of Brockton Bay the best, for obvious reasons. It would be wise to set up there. If I wasn't terribly wrong this was still the time of Marquis and Allfather, of Brockton Bay Brigade before they became New Wave.

I had time to meddle.

I dismissed my suit and reshaped my helmet into a net hidden by my hair so that I could still control my foglets. Then I turned my clothing into something era-appropriate and grabbed my backpack from bushes near where King had been killed. My drones had spotted it earlier when I had looked for the villains. I was glad that Jack hadn't grabbed it or destroyed it.

I made sure that no one saw me and materialized a 1987 Pontiac Formula with enhanced insides. Driving it was a pleasure. My first stop was a pawn shop where I exchanged some materialized jewelry for cash. I didn't feel too bad about this. Pawn shops of this era and area were infamous for dealing in stolen property. My second stop was McDonald's. Don't judge me too harshly. It was an easy restaurant to visit and I wanted to be on my way to Brockton Bay.

Then I was on my way. It was a surprisingly pleasant and uneventful five hours. I checked in to a motel, grabbed a map of Brockton Bay and began looking for a place for my secret base.


	3. Chapter 3

**Technomancer**

To make it clear: All rights to characters, setting, story and central concepts in this story remain the property of Wildbow, Worm's author. This is just me playing in the sandbox. Worm can be found at parahumans dot wordpress dot com.

* * *

 **All Your Base Are Belong To Us**  
 **October 17th, 1987, Friday**

I jerked awake, again. I took a bleary look at the clock next to my bed and decided to get up. 7 a.m. is good enough, especially after the night I had. Every time I fell asleep for long enough that I started dreaming the dream was a nightmare. Jack Slash is a sure way to get rid of pleasant dreams.

A quick shower later I spread the map on the bed. I'd need to mark the territories and other locations of various parahuman groups on it… Or I could just take a picture of it and use my laptop. Right.

Or even better, I could actually use my Tinkering ability.

Yeah, sleepless nights aren't my thing.

I drove around the city, checking out the places I remembered from the canon. Obviously, most of it was vastly different. There was no Protectorate HQ floating on the Bay, the atmosphere of the city was far better, Boat Graveyard wasn't a thing yet and the crime was way less visible than what was described in canon. Probably because it was still early days and gentleman villains like Marquis ran things.

I also thought of interesting possible places for my base. I briefly considered the aquifer but it was a known fact, at least in the future. In canon, the settlers founded the city here because of easy access to potable water from the aquifer. I could probably still make detection extremely difficult for at least a decade.

Another interesting possibility was the municipal dump. The dump would have plenty of raw materials I could use and managing one could be a good cover story. I could probably easily build a base under it as well.

Then there was Coil's example of hiding a base in large construction projects, or E88's co-opting of a large industrial complex as headquarters. Even Accord's complicated web of businesses and properties should be possible.

On the other hand… Protectorate and PRT weren't around yet to force capes out of business, and legal restrictions didn't exist either. I could go public. Heck, it would probably be safer that way.

I drove to Docks and began looking for empty lots or industrial properties for sale. Probably easier to hire an agent. Huh. No. That's perfect. There was a large empty lot for sale right next to Dockworker's Association. The stars seemed to be right. I drove to the Association's parking lot and walked in.

"Excuse me?" I asked the receptionist. She was quite attractive, perhaps in her mid-twenties.

"Yes? How may I help you?" she asked.

"Could I use your phone to call about that lot next door? I'd like to make an offer before it's gone."

She looked up, suddenly much more interested in me than before. "Really? Please wait a moment, I'll go get Mr. Locke."

It took perhaps a minute and then she returned with a man in his fifties. He was balding and had a robust frame of a physical laborer. What wrinkles he had seemed to be from weather and laughter. I felt an instant connection with him.

He extended his hand and we shook. "I'm Jim Locke, the current head of the Association. Diana said you wanted to make an offer for the lot?"

"Tom Rue, and yes. I was asking your receptionist if I could call and instead she rushed to fetch you. I suppose the Association owns that lot?"

"Indeed we do. We have no plans to expand that way as we have more shorefront to use first, so we decided to sell it to fill our coffers a bit more."

I thought for a moment. "Would you be interested in a contract that included a buyback option in exchange for a lower price? You see, I'm a cape, or parahuman as some call us. I gained a power to design and craft extraordinary technology and am planning to use the lot to build a workshop. The location would be ideal as well since shipping the products would be easy."

"But why the buyback option?"

"The situation with us parahumans is still rather fluid and I can't honestly claim to know how the legal system or society will change in response to us. It would be a good precaution and would also allow you to buy back the property if you decide my actions are inappropriate or the property would be more valuable to you than my custom and services."

"Sounds logical enough. We'll have to check with legal, of course, but I don't see a problem. You mentioned services?"  
We had been walking to his office while talking. He gestured for me to take a seat.

"Yes. Due to my power I can manufacture and maintain highly advanced technology, and could design, manufacture and service such technology to your specifications. Here, a sample."

I created a pallet seemingly floating in the air. "This pallet is cushioned on a cloud of microscopic machines. They can support heavy loads, absorb shocks and the pallet can move smoothly over any terrain. It can't fly but it can maintain any various distances from the ground depending on load. It runs on electricity but has internal energy storage so it can be charged when it's not in use."

Jim walked to the pallet and pushed down on it. It didn't move. Then he waved his hand under the pallet and it moved through without resistance.

"Fascinating. Do you mind if we try it out for a day or two?"

"Sure. That one is temporary, created with my power instead of real materials, but it will exist until I'll dismiss it. Is the size correct?"

"Let's go to the warehouses. We have some pallets there from which you can get the dimensions for. What's the load capacity?"

"This one can easily carry a load up to five tons. I can adjust that too."

Jim laughed. "Five tons is quite enough for a single pallet."

* * *

We came to an agreement and legal drew up the contracts. In them, I agreed to pay half the price when taking control of the lot, the other half in six months. In addition, I was to offer my services to the Association at a decreased rate. All in all, I was quite satisfied with the deal.

I then went to search for funding. I knew there were at least two criminal factions in the city that had enough resources to spare to fund my foray into real estate. All I had to do was to find one of their hideouts.

I donned my Technomancer suit and left my car on the lot I had just agreed to buy. I then buzzed around the city using the same method I used with the pallet.

It took almost six hours to find a decent stash of illicit cash. There was, of course, criminals guarding it. The seven men were bald, had Nazi tattoos and wielded various weapons from knives to pistols. I shrugged and walked into the warehouse from where they distributed drugs and stashed their illicit profits before transferring them to be laundered.

Nazi number one drew out his pistol and shot towards me. He missed the first time and then hit with the second. I did the Neo and picked the bullet from the air, studied it and then let it drop to the ground. Nazi number two came at me with a combat knife. I used an Aikido move to disarm him and then threw him to a wall with excessive force. He stayed down, groaning and drawing himself into a fetal position.

The remaining six Nazis looked at each other before three of them ran towards me, one more drew a gun and the last one ran upstairs.

I shot three bars on the second-floor walkway to block the way. The bars bonded with the wall on a molecular level and were composed of a titanium-tungsten alloy. Quite impervious to whatever the nazi could try to do to them.

I subdued the three melee nazis without bothering with martial arts by materializing restraints on their limbs and then attaching tungsten-plated osmium weights to them. While I was doing this my foglet cloud intercepted a dozen bullets. I walked to the gun nazis, preventing their escape with the foglets until I could put restraints on them too. Then I began climbing the stairs up to the second floor.

"You know, you must guys must be some sort of special sort of stupid. I know that we capes haven't been on the scene for long but seeing someone in a costume should ring a bell or five. I thought your boss was a cape? A villain? And you have some heroes here too, I believe? Sure, I'm new to Brockton but that shouldn't matter much."

"Most of you don't stop bullets or just pop out stuff from nowhere!"

"That's true as well. Oh well. Now, would you please show me the cash?"

"No! Screw you!"

"Fine," I said and made his restraints especially difficult to remove.

I walked into the office overlooking the warehouse floor and saw the safe. It was closed and locked. I shrugged and lifted the whole safe with my foglets. I then called anonymously the police to deal with the drug warehouse and walked out with the safe.

I went to the alley behind the warehouse, materialized some disassemblers and got the money from the safe. Then I reconfigured the safe's metal into a pram to which I materialized rubber wheels on the rims and then placed the money in it. I was now just another father out with his baby.

After walking for a couple of blocks and then ducking to another alley I materialized a small car and drove to the Association and paid the agreed sum. I dismissed both cars and then materialized both my suit and a pickup and headed to the municipal dump I had noticed earlier.

I arranged to recycle and sort the materials in return for a part of the materials. Those materials were then used to build my workshop from real materials instead of the stuff I materialized. I even got some universal assemblers crafted from the materials I got so that I could get rid of the rest of the materialized matter.

After a few days I had a workshop. I even remembered to dismiss the restraints.


End file.
